


My Love, My Darling

by MagusLibera



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Episode: s06e03 Next of Kin, F/M, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Missing Scene, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Mother-Son Relationship, Parent-Child Relationship, Post-Episode: S07e22 You Have Saved This City
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:47:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21979801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagusLibera/pseuds/MagusLibera
Summary: Two-Shot of Oliver and Felicity telling their children about one another.603: Oliver introduces his (future) wife to his son and decides to take the next steps. Before he does anything though, he sits down to tell William about Felicity and ask for his permission to do so.Post-722: Whilst Mia is growing up, she always asks for stories about Daddy. Mostly she gets them, but Felicity will never tell her stories about the two of them and their relationship. Until one day, she does.
Relationships: Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak
Comments: 21
Kudos: 88





	1. Lonely rivers flow

**Author's Note:**

> So... day two and I've failed my twelve days of updates already but in my defense I have been at a family party and am only an hour late my time! I haven't even been to sleep yet so it's still the 26th to me :D
> 
> Anyway, here is a short that will be completed as a part of my twelve days. All titles come from the song Unchained Melody by the Righteous Brothers. The song features in the movie Ghost.
> 
> Enjoy!

**Chapter I – Lonely rivers flow**

Oliver is practically bouncing with excitement as he makes his way home. _Home_ , to where his son and the love of his life are. Spending time together for the first time. Obviously they are not meeting in the way that they would have in Oliver’s dream world. No, that would require he and Felicity already being back together and the three of them taking the first steps towards becoming a family, but even the fact that she was so excited just to _tutor_ William fills him with hope for their future.

Because they _will_ get back together at some point soon. It is like some unspoken agreement that they have. Both of them stuck in limbo, neither dating nor not dating, neither together nor apart. Just waiting for one another to be ready to begin the rest of their lives. And a lot of it rides on William. His reaction to Oliver, to his new home and his new life and to whatever Felicity will become to him ( _wife_ , his heart whispers). But this is a good start.

It is also a good sign that Felicity was so eager to help. Up until now, she has dodged all of his attempts to introduce William to her, like his recent Big Belly bribe. He knows that it is because she is nervous. Old insecurities rearing their heads once again and making her fear William’s rejection and the eventual rejection from Oliver that she believes would follow such an event. He wishes that she could see what he does. He knows that William will love her, it is impossible for anyone with Queen blood not to love her (he maintains that Moira would have grown to once she got over the whole Thea thing), and even if William by some freak event did not, Oliver would spend the rest of his life attempting to find a way to make William love her because the thought of not having her by his side again is almost as painful as the thought of losing William again.

*************************

There are soft murmurs coming from his son’s bedroom when he walks through the door to his apartment. He can hear Felicity explaining the maths to William, rambling on about quadratic equations and binomials. The words seem familiar to Oliver, but only in that _‘when am I ever going to use this?’_ way that lingers from his boyhood memories. William seems to have a different take on the subject.

Once he is settled in, he does the one thing that he has been desperate to do for five months. He cooks for his family. With the sounds of the two of them talking providing the perfect background ambiance, he whips up a Monte Cristo for them both. Simple, quick, easy, delicious. Perfect for a study snack. He makes them with waffles instead of bread because that is the way that Raisa always did it for him and Tommy. And… maybe he knows that Felicity prefers them with waffles too.

When he goes to bring the food to them, he has to take a moment to just look. To watch them as they banter and smile at one another. He sees William smile so rarely that it is always a gift when he does, and it never lasts long. But his son is sat there, positively _grinning_ and looking for all the world like the young boy that he is rather than the hurt and suffering person that the last year has shaped him into. In that moment, Oliver knows. No more hesitation, no more dancing around one another. If Felicity can make his son _happy_ for any amount of time just by being her wonderful self, there is absolutely no reason to wait. Not anymore.

His relationship with William is steady, they are working to build trust again, they might as well complete their family and build it with all three of them rather than shaking it up all over again in the future. In his mind, the idea settles, a beautiful image taking root and making him yearn for that life. A life in which he lives with both of them, a ring adorned on Felicity’s finger, and his own. Her belly growing with another child.

He may be getting ahead of himself.

Attempting to keep himself from flirting with her in front of William proves to be futile, especially when he catches himself just staring into her eyes and her into his without saying anything for longer than is socially appropriate but he manages to deliver the sandwiches, much to her delight. Felicity has to leave, not long after that. The team calling her away from her Monte Cristo. William seems worried when he realises where she is going but an explanation that she will not be leaving the bunker seems to settle him.

“She is pretty cool.” He hears his son say from behind him as he watches her disappear.

He turns back to William, “Yeah, she is.” He responds. As he makes his way back out of William’s bedroom, intending to leave him to his studying, he finds himself hesitating at the doorway.

“Oliver?” William asks, confused as to why his father is just stood there, not moving.

“William, would you mind if we had a little chat for a minute?”

William nods his head, “Sure.”

Oliver settles himself in the chair recently vacated by Felicity, reaching for a triangle of Monte Cristo as William takes a bite of his own. “So… you liked Felicity?” he asks, unsure of where else to start.

“Yeah. Like I said, she’s cool. She knows video games and movies and TV shows and she’s really good at math.” William affirms.

Oliver takes a fortifying breath, “Did you… did you know that she and I used to date?” William’s eyes widen, “We, uh, actually used to be engaged.”

“What?” William exclaims.

“Yeah.” For some reason he is struggling to meet William’s eyes.

“And you’re still friends with her?”

Oliver smiles, still not looking up at his son, “Felicity was my friend before anything else. When I first got back to the island, I used to go to her for tech help when I needed it for my… extracurricular activities. Eventually, I told her my identity and she became a part of the team. We both fell in love with one another and once I got my head out of my… uh, once I got my head together, we started dating. We went away together and retired from being vigilantes and I was planning to propose. Then we came back to Star City and became vigilantes again and I was worried so I didn’t propose for a little, but eventually I did. She got hurt after that, paralysed actually, but we were deliriously in love and so went ahead with the wedding plans. As an engagement present, we were given this biostimulant that lets her walk now.”

“That exists? And it works?” William asks, excited.

“Yeah, our friend Curtis made it for her. He’s very clever with hardware and he used some of Felicity’s software so he was able to make it work.”

“That’s so cool! Felicity can code?”

“She’s the best h- uh, coder in the world.”

“Why would you ever stop dating her?” William frowns.

“I screwed up, and she let her insecurities get the better of her and we broke up because of it. But that didn’t change the fact that we loved each other and worked together so for the last year we have been stuck in a weird place in which we both love one another but can’t be together for various reasons.”

He finally looks up at his son, “William, the reason that I am telling you this is because six months ago, before everything with Chase, Felicity and I were working to get back to a relationship with one another but we decided to put it on hold because we didn’t want to add anything else new to your life. But I just saw you together and I swear William, I have never seen you smile quite so much. Certainly not since you have been living here.” He huffs out a laugh, “I should have known that it would be Felicity who would make you smile. She is always the one who makes me happy.

“The point is, I would very much like it… if you’re okay with it and only if you feel ready, if you would mind me dating Felicity again? We could go as slow as you want, she won’t move in right away and-”

“You should get her a present.”

“What?”

“When you ask her out again. You should get her a present. Something to say thank you for her tutoring me and for being patient and to let her know you care.”

A grin spreads its way over Oliver’s face. “Okay, Buddy, I will.”

*************************

William gets an A on his maths test, proving once again that either maths skills are not genetic or Samantha was a secret genius, and Oliver takes him to Big Belly to celebrate.

“Did you ask her out yet? Bursts out of William.

“Uh… not yet. I was actually planning to do it tomorrow night, so I possibly wouldn’t be back after work. Would that be okay?”

“Did you get her a present?”

“I was going to give her a key to our place, if you’re okay with that?” it is a question.

“Just the key?”

“Yeah. Nothing else yet. Why?”

William looks affronted, “You have to get her a keyring! You can’t just give her a key, it needs a keyring!”

“Oh! What sort of keyring? I wouldn’t even know where to begin.” He runs his hands through his hair, sudden stress filling his veins.

“I’ll help you choose one, don’t worry.” William laughs.

*************************

Saying goodbye to William the next morning is bittersweet. Oliver is obviously excited, more than ready to have Felicity back in his life fully and permanently, but it is also the first time that he has left William for an entire night since taking him in, so naturally he is worried. William’s enthusiasm for the event more than makes up for him. In a very short span of time, Felicity has bewitched William just as completely as she once did Oliver. The boy already adores her and clearly wants to see more of her. William wants Felicity in his life. Oliver has never been happier.

His night with Felicity is nothing short of magical. Having her in his arms again is transcendent and fills Oliver with further visions of their future together with his son and a litany of other little ones running around with the three of them. He cannot wait. And it only gets better when William insists on choosing the tie that he wears to his third first date with the woman of his dreams and begs to come with them.

Oliver denies that request for… reasons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The love of his life <3 William is my favourite!
> 
> [I have now fully edited this. There is not much different but a few things have been added.]


	2. Time goes by so slowly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mia grows up and finally convinces Felicity to tell her about Oliver.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy fourth day! It's almost over but I'm on time and I have actually edited both this chapter and Chapter I finally! There are only minor changes to the first part, a sentence added here and there and some grammar improved. You can read again if you want but you don't have to.
> 
> Anyway, here is the final part of this little two-shot. A bit longer and there is a lot more angst. I apologise in advance!

**Chapter II – Time goes by so slowly**

Felicity misses her son. From their first minute together, he had been so welcoming and loving. Even in times when he had been difficult or standoffish, he had still loved her. What a miracle, to join a family with a child who had already lost a mother but still be accepted as another. What a waste to have lost him before ever seeing him grow up.

She misses her husband. A man whose love and affection had been apparent through every up and down they had enjoyed and suffered. A man who had cared for her and taken care of her every second since they had met. The pain of his loss, of the losses that their family had endured will never leave her.

The agony is refreshed each and every time her little girl asks about her daddy. The first time, Mia is barely six months old and her father’s face is visible, flashing across the television as the news of his death is broadcast to the world. It is Mia’s second word. “Da.”

“Da.” Every time that she sees a photo, a video, a news segment. His image, his voice, his name, every and any mention of Oliver makes Mia perk up with a demand, a question, a statement. “Da!”

“Da?”

“Da.”

And then, as Mia grows, come the sentences, “Want Da!”

“Where Da, Mama?”

“That my Da.”

Felicity never knows quite what to say.

By the age of two, Mia is demanding bedtime stories about the Green Arrow, Team Arrow and Overwatch and Spartan. Those are easier for Felicity to handle, the memories feeling like they had happened to someone else, a separate entity. Maybe there had been something to Oliver’s whole third person act after all.

But then Mia starts asking about her family, questions about who they were and what her grandparents were like. How her parents had met, what her daddy was like. Felicity cannot bring herself to explain the answers to those questions. How can she ever tell her daughter: ‘Yes, Mia, you have loads of family but Daddy and I decided that you would only ever know me. Yes, Mia, you have an aunt and a brother and even living grandparents who don’t even know you exist. William probably thinks we hate him but Grandma Donna would absolutely dote on you, all she ever wanted were grandbabies, but we decided not to even tell her that you exist. Yes, Mia, I did have a daddy but he abandoned me when I was little because he is a criminal. Yes, Mia, your daddy did have parents but they both died horribly to protect him from very bad situations brought about by very bad men.’ She can never say those things to her child.

And how can she ever speak about the love of her life when she herself is still torn up, angry and devastated about his fate? She can barely even bring herself to _think_ of him, let alone tell her daughter stories about the man under the hood.

*************************

When Mia is eight, she is visibly frustrated with Felicity every time her questions about Oliver are evaded. It hurts Felicity every time she denies her daughter the knowledge about the kind of man her father was, but it hurts more whenever she tries to answer, so she sticks to stories about their actions as vigilantes, not as people.

The breaking point comes when Mia, at twelve years of age, stands herself in front of her mother, looking for all the world like she is forming a physical blockade with her tiny body and taking up far more space than someone so small should be able to. She is still flushed and panting from a training session with Nyssa but the hard glint in her eyes belies her exhaustion. Mia is still a pre-teen, but there is something infinitely wise in her stare, something ancient in her stance as she tells Felicity, “I have a right to know.”

Felicity knows exactly what her daughter is referring to, just the night before they had got into a rather loud argument when Felicity had once again refused to answer one of Mia’s more personal questions. That does not change the fact that Felicity is unable to bring herself to talk, “What do you have a right to know?” she sighs, wondering what Nyssa has said to bring this on again.

“You know what. He’s my father. This is my family too. I have a right to know about him and his life and his family. I love hearing about Team Arrow, you know I do, but that doesn’t tell me anything about what kind of man he was. What sort of husband and father he was to us. Is it not bad enough that I don’t get to know him myself? Is it not bad enough that I don’t remember anything about him? I have a right to know these things. Why won’t you tell me?”

Felicity is taken aback. Maybe this is less of a spur of the moment thing inspired by Nyssa than she thought. It seems like Mia has been planning what to say for a good long time. Her heart yearns to talk, to tell Mia exactly how wonderful Oliver was. How much he doted on his wife and his children. That he was the best husband and father than anybody could ask for. But she chokes on the words, her throat closing up as her eyes burn with tears that have gone unshed for over a decade. She has not cried since Mia was a baby, she cannot risk breaking down in front of her daughter like that. Mia needs her to be strong.

“Mia.” She sighs once again, “Clean yourself up and get on with your math work please. You’re going to fall behind.”

“No!” Mia yells, “Tell me about my father! Tell me about my daddy!”

That burning returns, “Mia, your dad loved you. You know this. He loved you so, so much. But you’re not ready.” _I’m not ready_.

“That’s not fair. It’s not true and you know it!” Mia cries, tears sparkling in the corners of her eyes.

“Go and do your school work, Mia.”

“No.”

“Mia.” Felicity snaps, loud voice rearing its head.

Mia sobs, yelling “What are you so afraid of, Mom?” before storming off to her room.

She does not hear her mother reply “The pain.” In a barely audible whisper.

*************************

Felicity gives Mia several hours to cool off before going to check on her progress. That was a mistake.

Mia has been busy. She has hacked through Felicity’s internet security measures. Felicity has no idea how long it took her daughter, but whilst the girl may not be the coding prodigy that William was, she is still her mother’s daughter and getting past one of Felicity’s low intensity protocols is clearly well within her wheelhouse.

But Mia has not taken advantage of her skills to do the sort of thing that they average pre-teen girl would do when given unrestricted access to the internet. No. She has used it to Google her father’s name. Her own surnames. Everything that Felicity has blocked her from. Except William, because every trace of him on the internet has long since been scrubbed away.

But Mia now knows about Robert and Moira and their questionable pasts and violent ends. She knows about Thea, her aunt who has never been pronounced dead so is probably still alive. She can see a bright, blonde woman in photos with Felicity: her grandmother, Donna. She even has access to Noah’s criminal record.

She has learned that she comes from a family of billionaire CEOs and, in the moment that Felicity walks through the door, is reading the article describing how Oliver, her beloved father, peed on a cop car in his youth.

“Mia!” Felicity exclaims.

Mia jumps up, jaw clenched in a way that so visibly mirrors Oliver that Felicity freezes for a moment, “Look, Mom, I’m sure that this isn’t the way that you wanted me to learn about my family. I’m sure that these aren’t all things that you would have wanted me to know, but you won’t tell me. You have spent twelve years refusing to say anything. You had to know that I would find out for myself eventually.”

Felicity knows that she should be angry, she knows that she should ground Mia and refuse her all of her favourite things for misbehaving so spectacularly, but how can she? All that Mia wanted was to know was her father. To understand where she came from and how her family was raised. Would Felicity not have done the exact same thing if Noah had left seven years earlier and Donna had refused to speak of him? She would have.

Something resistant inside her crumbles, “Mia.” She says, already feeling the weak patch job that had been holding her heart together for the last twelve years begin to fall apart, “Turn everything off and come to the living room.”

Mia’s lip wobbles, clearly she is still expecting a severe reprimand, but she does as she is told.

*************************

Once Mia is seated before her, Felicity begins to speak, “Mia, I’m going to talk now and I need you to listen because otherwise I won’t be able to continue. Can you listen for me?” Mia nods somewhat hesitantly. “Okay. The reason that I don’t talk about your father, that I don’t tell you stories and avoid answering your questions – well, there are a lot of them – but the most important one is that it hurts too much. I love your father, Mia. I still do, even though it has been longer now since I lost him than I ever knew him for. I will never move on and I will never stop mourning because he was the love of my life. My soulmate, if such a thing exists. On our wedding day I told him that my greatest fear in life was losing him, after a year of marriage I told him that I loved him more than a human being should love another human being and on the day that he left I told him that our love is bigger than the freaking universe. But I did lose him. I lost him before we ever even got to celebrate our second anniversary. I never got him back, and my heart has suffered every day since because of how much I love him. Then and now.” Felicity is not looking at her daughter, she is not truly looking at anything lost in the memories as her fingers subconsciously fiddle with her wedding ring.

“He adored us, Mia. He spent most of our relationship giving me even more dramatic declarations of love than I ever gave him. When he left he asked me to tell you he loves you every single day, and I have. He was a brave man, a survivor, a kind person and a fantastic cook and the most wonderful husband and father that anyone could ever ask for. Nothing will ever hurt more than the knowledge that you never got to see that, to know it deep in your soul. You never got to feel the unconditional love that he had for you and spend your life simply accepting that love as fact, you never got to see how much family meant to him and you never got to meet your b- your family. I had to hide them from you because we couldn’t tell them that you exist without endangering both you and them and we couldn’t tell you about them without you wanting to meet them and missing them because you’re unable to know them. It is unjust and unfair, just like it was when Oliver, a man who had been through literal Purgatory and back, who just wanted a quiet life with his family, was torn from it in the very moment that he had that life within his grasp.

“It hurts to talk about him, Mia. But I promise that from now on I will do my best to work through it, to be honest to you and answer your questions whenever I can because you’re right, you do deserve that. You have a right to that knowledge, to those stories, because they are what has led us right here, to this moment, to your life. I have been selfish letting my pain cloud what it is that you need and I won’t let that happen anymore. Just so long as you promise that you won’t go Googling the information from now on because the stuff on the internet is almost never right.” She smiles, finally meeting her daughter’s eyes even as she realises that her cheeks are soaked with tears.

Mia is crying too, she has never seen her mother like this before, “Mom!” she says, leaping forwards into Felicity’s arms and lifting her small hands to wipe away her mother’s tears. Felicity presses a kiss to the crown of her head, “I’m sorry. I never thought about how it might make you feel to talk about him. I promise to stay away from the internet and I promise to keep the questions to a minimum so that it doesn’t hurt as much.”

“You ask all the questions you want to, Mia. You have the right to.”

Mia’s eyes quirk, a question sparking in her mind, “Did Dad really pee on a cop car?”

Felicity laughs, “Yes, unfortunately that part is true. Your father made some very poor choices, most of them before the Island.”

“Will you tell me?” Mia asks, eagerly.

“Now those stories will definitely have to wait until you’re a few years older. I wasn’t there for that anyway. I didn’t meet your dad until a few years after he returned from Lian Yu.” Mia knows all about the Island and Oliver’s return and how he went to her mother for tech help from the stories that she has heard about the Green Arrow and Overwatch.

“Will you actually tell me about the first time that you met him? And not just the vigilante stuff, the other stuff.”

Felicity smiles, that beautiful agony of remembering the joy of her first meeting with Oliver filling her as it has many times before. This time, she focuses on the amusement of the interaction, how smitten she had been, how happy.

“Well, it all started with a bullet ridden laptop.” She begins.

“I know that, Mom!” Mia interrupts with a groan, rolling her eyes.

“But did you know that he told me that it was broken because he spilt a latte on it?”

“How could it have bullet holes in it then?” Mia squeals.

“That’s exactly what I said. He told me that his coffee shop was in a bad neighbourhood.”

Mia’s giggles continue as Felicity’s story does. A weight that she had unknowingly been carrying for over a decade slipping from her shoulders as she finally tells Mia everything that she should always have known.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And then a few years later Mia catches her Mom in another lie and gets mad and runs off to Star City and meets her brother. You know the rest. It ends with the future being changed and this whole exchange being erased because Oliver does get to raise his children ;)

**Author's Note:**

> All mistakes are on me, a person who is on Twitter [@MagusLibera](https://twitter.com/MagusLibera)!


End file.
